Film Review
Steel Notes Magazine
January 2017
Film Review
Seeing the Voyeur in all of us : Review of De Palma ( 2016 )
By Jerry Saravia ( Pseudo Film Critic )
I don ’ t know if Brian De Palma is a visionary . I am not sure he is the Hitchcock copycat he has often been called , aping the visual style of Hitchcock ’ s own “ Vertigo ” and its female doppelganger subplot for most of his career . I never really considered De Palma a filmmaker who exploited women or was any sort of demented misogynist . Sure , an electric drill is thrust through a woman ’ s body dressed in lingerie in “ Body Double .” Yes , a woman ’ s final scream in the throes of death is woven into the soundtrack of a film-within-the-film in “ Blow Out .” Yes , Angie Dickinson ’ s character makes face with a scalpel in an elevator in “ Dressed to Kill .” Then there is the honest depiction of a teenage girl with her period getting pelted with tampons in the famous opening scenes of “ Carrie .” I still do not understand the misogyny charge any more than when it could have been applied to Hitchcock with Janet Leigh ’ s sudden demise in the infamous shower scene of “ Psycho ” or the numerous birds that attack Tippi Hedren and her perfectly coiffed hairdo in “ The Birds ” or , well , I could go on .
De Palma might have shown more empathy towards women overall . The Angie Dickinson character in “ Dressed to Kill ” is seen like a floating apparition in white , walking as if she was floating across the floors of the Museum of Modern Art in endless Steadicam takes . So much attention is divulged on her , from her lovemaking to her husband who abruptly takes off after finishing his business , to listening and talking
Brian De Palma as himself in ‘ De Palma ’ ( 2016 )
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